READ THE WOMEN'S LAND RIGHTS PAPER N.10 ON ASSISTING KAYOLE WIDOWS IN GAINING CONTROL OVER FAMILY LAND
WOMEN'S LAND RIGHTS IN KENYA
The death of a husband spells doom for the widow as it threatens her psychological and physical wellbeing. Often, she is blamed for the misfortunes in the family and punished by being chased away from her matrimonial home and all properties may be taken from her by in-laws. This denies her ownership and control of family land. These tragedies are worse for young widows. They are new to their matrimonial homes and they cannot mobilise local justice systems in their defence and have no power in claiming traditional forms of wealth, like land or domestic animals, their husbands might have accumulated or inherited. They do not yet have children old enough to look out for their well-being, so they are left improvised, rejected and unprotected. They return to towns to find solace in minor trading, casual odd jobs or prostitution. Interestingly, older widows do not go through these tragedies as they are more established within the family and the community and the older sons are able to defend them accordingly.
Women can inherit land and other prop- erty from their husbands’ estate after the death of a husband and this is entrenched in the Kenya Succession Act 1981. This Act stipulates that women may inherit property as dependents of the deceased. It is evident from YWAP’s experience that many young widows lose the property left by their deceased husbands - especially land. The most affected are the widows from Luo Nyanza and Western province. While there is information about these women’s suffering an eventual loss of the family property, there are no systematic efforts in place to assist them to secure their matrimonial property on the death of their husbands or to regain the lost property. This is compounded by the widow’s lack of resources and skills to undertake such a task.
